Lugar, Kirklee Cottage

Lugar Parish Church and Kirklee Cottage form an unusual and historically significant pair of buildings in the village of Lugar, Ayrshire. The church is a six-bay, rectangular-plan, gabled building, originally constructed in the 1840s as an engine repair shed connected to the local ironworks, and converted to a church in 1867. Adjoining it to the southeast is Kirklee Cottage, a lower, single-storey, five-bay building dating from around 1867, which served as the manse for the church. Together, the two buildings form the northwest corner of an L-plan run of adjoining single-storey cottages. The other cottages in this group are listed separately at category B.

Both buildings are constructed in stugged, coursed rubble with smooth margins, raised cills, and overhanging eaves, and both are roofed in purple slates. Kirklee Cottage has a ridge chimney stack.

The church has a lower porch to the northwest, with a bellcote on the gable above it. The porch has a two-leaf timber entrance door set within a corniced door surround on its east elevation. The windows are mostly fixed, large, multi-pane timber frames, each with two horizontal panels of plate glass above six panes below.

Kirklee Cottage has a central timber entrance door with a fanlight above to the west elevation. The west elevation also has four-over-six-pane timber lying-pane sash and case windows. The east elevation has replacement windows. There is a later flat-roofed extension to the east.

In the garden of the cottage there is a square-plan brick outhouse with a slated, piended (hipped) roof. Based on the second edition Ordnance Survey map, this is thought to have been a former laundry, reflecting the relatively high status of the manse.

The interiors were inspected in 2016. The church has a central row of pews with two side aisles, a wide kingpost timber roof, and a timber-boarded gallery to the north supported on iron columns. A curved staircase with metal barley-sugar-twist balusters leads up to the gallery. The doors are panelled timber, some with decorative metal grills above. On the east wall there is an infilled round arch, which was formerly an opening to allow engines to enter and exit the building — a visible reminder of its original industrial function.

Kirklee Cottage retains simple plaster cornicing and decorative ceiling roses in its main public rooms. The room at the north end of the cottage is currently used as a vestry by the church.

The church's history is closely tied to the industrial development of Lugar. The original ironworks at Lugar were established when the Dundyvan Ironworks of Coatbridge expanded to exploit locally discovered blackband ironstone. In 1856, the works were sold to William Baird and Company, one of the major ironworking firms of the era. Iron production paused between 1857 and 1864, after which the company relocated the works up the hill to the north of the village and began trading as the Eglinton Iron Company, continuing in operation until 1928. The majority of the ironworks buildings and associated housing have since been demolished.

The 1840s engine shed was converted to a church in 1867, opening initially as a chapel-of-ease within the Church of Scotland. The conversion appears to have retained the original plan form, elevations, and roof of the engine shed, with the addition of a bellcote, the insertion of large windows, and a new interior arranged for Presbyterian worship. The first edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1857, shows a rectangular building on the church site, at that point standing separate from buildings to the south. By the second edition, surveyed in 1895, the full L-plan group is present, with the church identified at the northern end. The church and manse were gifted to the Church of Scotland in the early 1900s. The church was joined with St Ninian's, Netherthird, Cumnock in 1961, after which the manse became a private house.

As one of the very few surviving structures associated with the original 1840s ironworks at Lugar, the church is a tangible link to the village's industrial past. The 1840s date makes it an early example of ironworks construction, and a rare survival in the local area. The buildings are little altered externally since the 1867 conversion and contribute to a historically interesting 19th-century group prominently located within the village.

The listing statutory address was revised in 2016, when the building was previously recorded as 'Kirkton Cottage'. The category was changed from B to C in 2016.